by Serena James
Kane could see Connor walking slowly down the corridor, his semi-automatic aimed. Frightened staff and patients lined the corridor. Some of them were crying with fear as they watched Connor walk through the middle of them checking amongst them for the assailants. Kane followed him quickly to provide back up. There were so many people they could easily be hiding behind them.
Kane’s eyes rested on a small group of patients huddled together. They looked more frightened than the others. One of the women was crying loudly. The sound was eerie in the silence that was now resting on the small narrow space. Connor began to pass the group. Kane urgently fed his suspicions to him through the mike. He watched Connor turn his head quickly towards them. It was too late.
One of the assailants swiftly came out from behind the patients and smacked a blow across Connor’s back. Connor was knocked to the floor. His weapon fell from his hands. Kane had his own problem to deal with. Another man came out of the crowd to his side. Kane was ready for him. He knocked the Uzi into the man’s face hard. His attacker reeled back, blood splattering his face. He came back at Kane immediately, cursing in Bundenese. Kane started to fight. He pushed the man against the wall with force, scattering terrified patients and staff. He felt winded as the man punched him hard in his stomach three times, sending him flying back against the opposite wall. His attacker held him against it by the lapels of his suit jacket as he tried to recover enough to retaliate. He spat at Kane, “Where is the woman?”
The man aimed a punch at Kane’s face but he ducked in time. He brought his knee up high into the assailant’s stomach and punched the side of the man’s head several times. Dazed, his attacker backed away attempting to recover. Kane pulled out his semi- automatic and without hesitation shot the man dead at close range. He watched him fall backwards onto the floor and turned his attention back to Connor.
Connor was up, fighting his assailant. Kane stood and aimed at Connor’s attacker, waiting for the shot. He finally got it after a few seconds when Connor saw what he was trying to do. When the man saw Connor glance at Kane he made the mistake of following suit. Kane executed a clear bullet tract through his frontal lobe. The man fell away from Connor and Kane saw him calmly wipe blood from his mouth and retrieve his firearm. He nodded his thanks. Kane told Tom on the mike to bring Rebecca and Charles through quickly. He knew there would be more men on the way.
Kane kept his automatic trained on the people around him as Connor made his way to the service stairs and lift to ascertain whether or not the exit was clear. The people started hurrying away from Kane in a small panic to the service stairs. Kane glanced behind when he heard Tom bringing Rebecca and Charles along the corridor. He instructed them to follow close behind as he began to clear a path through the people.
The service entrance was jammed by a sea of staff and patients. Kane took hold of Rebecca’s hand and pulled her through with him. They made it through the door only to find a large group of people huddled around the lift. They were pushing and shoving each other waiting for it to come back up. Kane weighed the situation up as being potentially explosive. Another group was moving down the stairs. He pulled Rebecca closer as Connor spoke to him on the mike. He was on his way back up from reconnaissance down the stairs. By the sound of his voice he was hurrying.
He told Kane, “They are on their way up, four of them. We need to take a chance in the lift.” Kane acknowledged his communication. He had been ready to use the stairs and was heading that way. He turned Rebecca around and pulled her back to the lift. He had to work out a tactful way of getting Rebecca and the others to the front of the queue and he had to do it fast. The lift was on its way back up. He briefly considered his options and then simply barged through with Connor’s help when he appeared from the stairs. The Uzi and the other firearms seemed to do the trick. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near them.
There was shouting coming from the stairs and Kane could hear the sound of heavy boots pounding up the concrete steps. He pushed Rebecca into the lift, against the side of it. Charles followed in behind her. Kane aimed his semi- automatic to cover Connor and Tom.
Kane watched Charles take hold of Rebecca’s shoulders and turn her slightly so she was facing the steel wall. He stood close against her, shielding her body with his own. It was a gallant gesture from a friend but Kane was suspicious of the sudden uncomfortable look on Rebecca’s face. Charles rubbed her shoulders and whispered something in her ear. He was too close for comfort. Rebecca seemed to be trying to squash her way through the wall away from him. She appeared repelled.
Kane frowned. He could do nothing until Connor and Tom were in the lift. A couple of the staff decided to take their chances in the lift with them. Kane noticed Connor glare at Charles as he passed by into the lift. Tom entered quickly behind him and took up the same stance as Kane until the lift doors were closed. They were damn slow in moving. Two men were emerging from the stairs. They took aim. Kane held his breath. He couldn’t really shoot, there were too many people around them who could be killed. They were sitting ducks with nowhere to go. Come on, come on.
One of the assailants fired. The heavy steel doors closed just in time to stop the bullet. Kane let out the breath he was holding and everyone sighed with relief. He immediately turned to Rebecca. Charles was pressing himself against her. The contact was almost threatening but he could tell by Charles’s face that he was afraid and didn’t even realise what he was doing. He was about to open his mouth and say something tactful before simply yanking him off her when Connor took the situation out of his hands.
He told Charles in a calm authoritative voice, “Mr. Beaumont, please give Ms Eaton some personal space. Don’t worry. We will make sure she is safe.” Kane raised his eyebrows as Connor led Charles away to the back of the lift. Rebecca turned around. She looked relieved. Kane watched her closely as she glanced to the back of the lift. There was something in her eyes when she looked at Charles that told him she did not trust him. Charles stared back with a blank expression. It was an expression Kane had noticed he had perfected so that his emotions and his motivation could never be deciphered. That was enough to make Kane suspicious.
Rebecca looked at Connor and mouthed thanks when Charles looked away. He winked at her and flashed her a wide smile. Kane tensed. The smile was too much. It was the one he used when he was chasing a woman in a bar. Back off. Kane touched Rebecca’s arm and asked her, “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay. I’ll make sure I don’t slow you down too much.” She was still clutching the laptop to her chest. She sounded out of breath and she was too pale for his liking. She shouldn’t have been walking around, let alone running.
He told her diplomatically, “You are doing great, but you’re injured. You look exhausted and I am concerned about the effect this is having on your injuries. If it gets too much I can carry you.”
Kane got exactly the response he had expected. Rebecca’s eyes narrowed with indignation almost immediately. Her voice was fierce when she answered him, “No thanks. I can manage.”
He had no patience for her messing him around. “If I have to Rebecca, I will take the choice away from you. You look ready to drop any moment. I am not taking any chances with your safety and health even if it means wounding your pride.”
She was silent, pensive for a moment. Then her features lightened and she nodded resignedly. She said softly, “I understand but I can manage. I’m not lying. I will tell you if I can’t...”
He interrupted her. “I am watching you Rebecca.” She nodded again. For once in their relationship she wasn’t eager to push him. Now he knew she was really struggling. It made him worry all the more for her.
Kane looked at the lift panel counting down the floors. They were just passing the second floor. How come service lifts were always so slow? He was just beginning to believe that they might get away with it when there was a loud bang. The lift shook violently, forcing them all to the floor. Darkness fell around them.
Kane raised hi
s head. Where is she? He called out for her. She had been standing right next to him. She had to be close by. He couldn’t hear her. He could hear Connor, Charles, Tom, even the other people in the lift but not her. He called her name again. He could hear the fear echoing in his voice. He swept his hands around him searching for her.
Suddenly someone grabbed hold of his arm and hung on. She whispered to him, “I’m okay. I’m Okay, Dominic.” He could hear her trying to catch her breath again. She was in pain. He touched her hand on his arm and pressed his palm against it, just to make sure her hold was real. Low emergency lighting suddenly flickered into life. Dominic raised himself from the floor and pulled Rebecca with him. From what he could tell the lift was still intact, but he didn’t like the creaking and groaning noises it was making. He guessed that the explosion they’d heard was the gas. Ramsay and Alastair were demanding to know if they were OK in his earpiece. They confirmed the gas explosion.
Tom gestured towards the doors. “We need to get these doors open.” Kane held Rebecca close to his side glancing with concern at the blood she was wiping away from her forehead. He studied the doors.
Connor broke in, “There’s a chance they will be waiting right outside.”
“Can anyone else smell smoke?” Rebecca asked. “It looks a little hazy in here.”
Connor moved towards the doors suspiciously. He sounded wary. “Yeah I can. Maybe we are going to open those doors out onto flames.”
Kane told them, “It’s a chance we are going to have to take. Connor, move Rebecca and the others to the back of the lift and draw your weapon while we open the doors. Tom you take the left side and I will take the right.”
Kane handed Rebecca to Connor, watching him closely. For some reason he couldn’t shake the feeling that Connor had designs on Rebecca. Connor gave her a gentle coaxing smile and hung a loose arm around her back ready to catch her swaying form if she fell. Kane heard him confidently order the others with them to follow.
An intrusive thought caught Kane off guard as he started to force his fingers between the doors to get a grip. He remembered Rebecca telling him about two other men who came on to her in Afghanistan. She would never tell him who they were. One of the men he’d guessed to be Major Nicholas Greer who took her out on that operation and nearly got her killed.
Connor had been a young Captain under his command. Maybe you were the other one. He shook the thought away and busied himself trying to open the doors from his end. The action proved difficult. They felt jammed and he had to use all of his strength in union with Tom. They eventually managed to pull them apart.
There was a small disparity between the lift and the second floor level slightly above them. Kane called for Charles and one of the hospital staff to come and keep the lift doors open whilst he and Tom tackled the doors that led to the floor. Kane followed Tom’s sudden downward look to the bottom of the doors. Wisps of grey smoke were seeping through. Tom’s eyes mirrored his own anxiety when they both looked up in silent communication. They had no choice.
Kane imagined he felt the heat on his fingers as he began prising the doors open. More smoke came through the widening gap. He barked an order, “Everyone cover your face.” He heard Rebecca loudly translate his words into Bundenese. The doors started to move more easily. They opened up into smoke filled darkness.
Kane glanced back. Connor was now standing in the middle of the lift, his semi-automatic aimed squarely between the doors. He had positioned Rebecca right behind him. Satisfied, Kane turned his attention back to the outside. He couldn’t hear any movement. He stood back against the door to keep it open, covering his mouth and clutching the Uzi close. He couldn’t see anything. He told Tom to keep both doors open as he moved out of the lift, aiming the Uzi.
Kane stepped on something. He could see in the dim smoky light that it was a body. He crouched down and felt for a pulse. It was a man, one of the staff by his uniform. He was dead. Kane made a decision. He had lives to save and protect. He pulled the man by the arms towards the lift. Tom was straining to keep them opened now. He sat the man up and wedged him against one side of the door. Thankfully the man was a stocky build and held it well.
Kane told Connor to get everyone out. He noticed Rebecca ushered the Bundenese out first, telling them to trust him. Kane helped them out. Tom finally let go of the outer doors. They kept trying to shut but the body prevented them. Kane caught Rebecca watching as it was brutally pounded by the doors. She looked lost as though the body was reminding her of something. He made her turn around not wanting her to see the distressing scene anymore.
He started to lead the group down the service stairs next to the lift. They were all coughing like mad. He aimed the Uzi, instinctively sweeping it from side to side, watching the disturbing shadows that followed their progress down the stairs. This wasn’t the first time he had been blind in the dark with Rebecca. He still remembered that day clearly. It was after that bomb went off in compound 49 in the Green Zone in Helmand Province. Major Greer had enticed Rebecca to go on a patrol with him so she could make one of her reports for the news. Jed was outside the walls at the time. He could usually avoid danger. Rebecca, she attracted it like a magnet.
Kane remembered the cold fear icing his spine as he searched for her in the compound under the dead mutilated bodies that lay around him. He’d started getting desperate, able to hear the panic in his voice. He’d called her name time and time again, just like he did in the lift before. He’d known she was alive. He didn’t know how, not even to this day. He’d just known. The woman had nine lives. So he had kept searching.
He’d got down on his knees that day, lifting up body parts, fumbling in the dark for her. He would never forget the silence that clung around him. He eventually found her under three mutilated bodies. One of them was Major Greer. They had obviously pushed her away from the explosion to protect her. She was lying there stunned. Her eyes were moving back and forth with fear. Her mouth was open. She was mouthing his name, but there was only a strangled whisper coming out – she couldn’t speak, she was in shock.
He’d checked her arms, legs, and body to make sure she was all intact. There was blood all over her face. Thank God it wasn’t hers. She wasn’t even severely injured, just in a hell of a lot of shock. He’d pulled her up and held her tight against him. He remembered shaking with the relief of having found her alive. She was almost catatonic. She kept trying to say his name. He would never forget the way she clung to him when he picked her up and carried her out. Nor would he forget the way she made him feel, that he never wanted to be apart from her again.
He forced the memories to retreat to the back of his mind. They made it to the first floor landing. He told them all to stop when he noticed that there was debris blocking any further progress down the stairs. Kane turned his attention to the door leading out onto the first floor. He could hear the rage of flames behind it. There was no way they could go through there. There seemed to be no way out.
Chapter Twelve
Kane went over the plan of the building in his head. He and Tom had studied it in meticulous detail when he had been reviewing the flight of various emergency routes presented by his team. He suddenly remembered that there was a fire escape stairs on the outside of the building running down from the first floor service stairwell. He started feeling along the wall until he found the fire door. He banged down hard on the metal bar meant to open it. Nothing. It was stuck.
He told Connor and Tom what he was doing and to keep everyone back until he could get the door open. He had to make sure it was clear and safe to proceed first. He pressed down on the bar with as much force as he could muster as Tom came to help him. They each banged their shoulders hard against the door. On the third go it gave way and swung open.
He aimed his semi-automatic at the metal stairway while blinking in the bright hot sunshine suddenly assaulting his vision. Satisfied it was clear he stepped out onto the stairs and aimed below them. Clear. He instructed Tom and Connor to
bring the others out.
Kane ran down the stairs and jumped that last few. He radioed to the rest of his team to bring the cars around. He aimed his handgun, searching for any signs of the assailants as the small group began to make its way down the stairs. The two hospital staff that had travelled in the lift with them were in a panic. They tried to push past Connor and Rebecca. Kane heard a sudden shot ring through the air.
A bullet penetrated the skull of the man in front of Rebecca. He hadn’t stood a chance. Kane watched blood splatter backwards over Rebecca’s face. Connor reacted with lightening speed. He reached down and pulled Rebecca backwards and up the stairs, practically lifting her into the air by her collar. He pinned her behind him back in the doorway and began opening fire. Kane heard the dead man’s body slide and bump down the metal stairs and fall to the ground.
Kane tucked the semi-automatic away and swung the Uzi round from his shoulder. He covered Tom as he dragged Charles behind him back against the wall. There were four men coming around the corner and once more Kane felt like they were sitting ducks. Luckily help was at hand. Three black BMW X5s were being driven at speed towards him from behind the building. The first of the cars swung in front of him at an angle and screeched to a halt. The middle car stopped near him. Stuart got out and Miles exited the third, each carrying a HKG36 assault rifle. They ran to assist Ramsay and Miles who were both opening fire having got out of the first car.
Kane told Connor to bring Rebecca down. Kane lifted Rebecca away from the last part of the stairs and away from the dead body. He lowered her to the ground. He ran for the middle X5 pulling her with him. He made her get in the back, in the middle seat next to Charles and fastened her seatbelt across her.